Fine, but I'd actually like some sections of the press corps to wipe themselves off and try to remember what they're supposed to be doing

So we all saw the Daily Show Inauguration Special where John Stewart spliced Obama's speech with Bush's showing how similar the rhetoric was... before apologising profusely and saying "it's all I know how to do!"

I'm just watching the UK Channel 4 news coverage of the inauguration. Christopher Hitchens said to Jon Snow that he thinks John Roberts had a petit mal seizure while he was reading the oath, and that he's had such episodes before.

Given Hitchens' distaste for all things metaphysical, I'm shocked he'd be diagnosing rather tricky neurological events over the TV. Had Jon Snow asked him the lottery numbers?

Well, he was unmarried before he got married, which was before he entered the White House. I think it's the four kids with his wife that makes him not gay.

Well, it would not be the first time someone got married and had children to "prove" they were not gay but I digress. The rumor about Lincoln's sexuality has been around for a while. See this New York Times articleHowever, as noted in the article, sharing a bed back then was not at all uncommon but what the hey?.

*sigh* Fine, but I'd actually like some sections of the press corps to wipe themselves off and try to remember what they're supposed to be doing.

Which sections in particular? I don't think the early days of the presidency have been poorly covered, given that we're all of two days into the new presidency, and the guy has conducted himself with a great degree of assurance.

It would border on negligence to ignore the great moment of an African-American entering the White House; ditto for the global reaction to the changing of the guard, and for that matter Obama's extraordinary domestic approval ratings going into the job. They're key parts of the story in these first few days.

OTOH, I was getting really tired of various lefty-liberal types writing him off two weeks before he was even in the job.

Given Hitchens' distaste for all things metaphysical, I'm shocked he'd be diagnosing rather tricky neurological events over the TV. Had Jon Snow asked him the lottery numbers?

Hitchens seemed to be saying that this was establishment knowledge, and it might as well be "out in the open". Who knows whether he actually knows what he's talking about.

linger, my feeling is that he inherited his style from a bygone era, and I can tolerate it because most of my own degree was spent reading boring old philosophers talking at great length about their arguments. Compared to many of them, Chomsky is a light and entertaining read. I actually find it far harder to read people who speak more briefly because they rely on their audience to fill in all the gaps, and a great many of the gaps can't be unambiguously filled. So I have to read, and reread, and then I have to go and find their other works or comments to find out what the hell they meant. Or guess, often wrongly. At least with Chomsky, you know what he means, because he's meant it for decades, and he says it in full every time. Confession: My own style is much the same. I don't like being misunderstood, or worse, deliberately misconstrued. Perhaps it's got something to do with being an engineer.

To see what's happening on the Northwestern motorway. Which is, very little.

Dude crashed and got shot at our local onramp. Motorway closed both ways between here and the city, and a whole lot of citybound people likely to be sitting in their cars short of Western Springs for some time yet.